Reflect
by Act
Summary: The remedy is the experience, which is a dangerous liason. [HYBRID FIC!]
1. I: Prewriting

**Prologue.**

**I. Prewriting**

_Cold._

_You see, more often than not a single word is infinitely more powerful than the harangues of description most would use in its place. It invokes a single, easily deciphered emotion as opposed to a jumble of feelings that leave little wake as they pass by. What does it matter, dear reader, if he was tall and handsome? If he was neither? _

_Granted, he was tall, though not overly good-looking (and possibly to some not good-looking at all). But is this superficial point, in the end, what attracts one person to another? Is this what, particularly in the blindness that is a written account, creates a bond between one being and another?_

_I think not. This said, I give you that word and leave you to meditate on it: what exactly makes someone so? Naturally it is not the only trait he held, but it is quite central to the background of this tale, your prologue._

_She, on the other hand, merits the word 'there'. It is in fact an adjective --demonstrative, for those who are that particular-- and it is what she was. There. Seemingly from nowhere she came (though truly she reached him through her father's occupation), and, as the stories generally go, they found themselves together._

_For those who still dwell on the visual despite my objections, you may call her 'average', for that is what she was. She stands no chance, you see, against the rallies of women who intrude on our eyes as we flip nonchalantly through any given magazine. Yet, she is somehow more than the average-looking girl. She is not quiet. Unlike most, she learned through experience that personality can far outshine, and even enhance, the physical being._

_Regardless, they found a kind of love._

_Now, contrary to how the stories generally go, he was not in the least happy about this. Or, rather, he was not happy that he was happy. Regardless of the exact situation, it involved psychological upset that he knew was out of his control, though he tried desperately to control it. Things like this did not happen. There were reasons they did not happen, reasons he could not communicate. Look around you! Do you see it? Of course not. But since when do we choose who we love? _

_Reader, you can probably assume at this point without making an ass of you and me that they did, in fact, live happily together for some time. There would be no story otherwise. The exact circumstances of their affair prior to and for significant time after marriage are not necessary at this point (though they are intriguing enough); what is the point of a prologue but to relate what is needed for a reader to understand a story. And, the point of this, what you need to understand, is simply that they were wed._

_Indeed._


	2. II: Prequisites

**Prologue.**

**II. Prequisites**

"I can't spell," he announced to the teacher with a grin on his face, as if this was something to be extremely proud of. Somewhere, a classmate giggled.

The woman sighed. "Please, Emmett, just try." This exact conversation repeated itself every time the class held a spelling bee.

"But I don't know. Can't I just sit down? I don't mind, like, losing or anything, really. And I'll study tonight." Appeasing this lady never seemed to work for him, but nonetheless she mouthed 'alright' and gave a nod. A bold ten-year-old like this was a nightmare for a teacher right out of college.

Allow me a pause for a short description of Emmett. He was a small boy (and would be a small adult as well) -- his father's genes for height having ignored him entirely—but he was surprisingly broad. Unfortunately he had missed anything athletic floating around his family and, like too many others, would be condemned to loving sports and not being able to play them. His light eyes looked slightly odd against his darker complexion and hair; in fact, his elder sister would often complain that no clothing looked right on her (what matched her skin tone jarred with her eye color, and vice versa). He did not quite crave attention, but he was not at all shy of it. He took a seat, his tiny self disappearing into a sea of standing students.

There should be something said for the boy behind him as well. Ian Jordan hated that his name tended to rhyme, but liked it well enough otherwise. He was a bright boy—destined to be labeled something or another as a teen—and wanted nothing more than to be a famous scientist when he grew up. The gossip would later be that this dream was the only reason he was best friends with Emmett in the first place; Emmett's grandfather worked at a well-to-do laboratory in far-away Mossdeep City. Ian, an only child, was tall and somewhat lanky (had he liked sports, he could have easily been an athlete). He had the kind of eyes that were tough to be angry at: dark and droopy, always sad and melancholy. He stood tall (though it was difficult for him to do anything else) and deftly spelled the word that had left Emmett sitting.

Words were spelled, bells rang, and one or two students smiled when Ian lost to Linda Rowette. Emmett sighed and opened his locker: there would undoubtedly be another word in edgewise to his parents at conferences, and another speech about how the teacher was the teacher and he should know better than to be so rude. He felt guilty about being 'rude', but he really didn't know the answer and saw no reason to embarrass himself with a desperate attempt at the word. And he was just like that in spelling, really.

A note fluttered down out of his locker as he rushed to pack his things and begin trotting home.

Do you remember that first crush, reader? That was Emmett to Jessie Salcito. Unfortunately, the note was not from this shy girl. As she looked on, which was not all that difficult to do-- their lockers were right next to each other (Salcito, Solvati)-- she saw that it was a warning to clean his locker. The vice-principal and eighth-grade teacher had the tendency to dump the entire contents of messy lockers all over the floor to make a student sort it out.

He stuffed the note into his pocket and looked over at her. "You ready? Ian and Jessica are gonna meet us at my house, because she has cheerleading and he has better things to do, so you can come over for a little, my mom said." What had Jessie's mom said once? That she would be friends with all the boys, but never have a boyfriend? What a curse that is, reader, to be in a puppy love with your best friend, to be a hopeless, average-looking tomboy. She would finally make a move too late, many years later, if you find yourself curious. There's no real love story here.

"Alright, hold on one second, I can't remember my locker combo and I forgot my science book… actually, it's probably home. Let's go," she said, mostly to herself.

"I did my stuff in class, just take mine," Emmett offered.

And so began the trek home.

Celadon City was huge, as you most definitely know, but the little neighborhood that housed our friends was tightly knit, as are most similar neighborhoods. It was more suburban than city-like, with no overly tall buildings or apartment complexes. Justine Solvati's stomach would always turn at the thought of her ten-year-old walking home from school by himself. Letting him do that was what bad parents did, the kind whose children were kidnapped. But she found herself without much choice—the school did not offer a bus route, and both she and her husband worked.

Justine did not worry as much about her daughter, Larissa, who was much more introverted and less likely to strike up conversation with whomever happened to walk up to her. But nothing had happened in ten years, and in truth nothing ever would occur on that short, simple walk home from school. Justine would never have to suffer the pain and humiliation of being one of those parents who let their young children do ridiculous things. Do not take that at face value, though. 'Ridiculous' is being used specifically here, and Emmett was allowed to do many insane things as the years went by. But none pertain specifically to kidnappings and murders.

It was, naturally, Larissa who opened the door to Emmett and Jessie. She glanced at them and let them in; she was listening intently to music ('plugged in,' Justine called it), and would break out in song for a few seconds every now and then.

Larissa had never been awfully fond of Emmett's friends—a four-year age difference will do that—but she particularly disliked Jessie and her more feminine counterpart, Jessica. For once, she found it excruciatingly annoying that they had the same name, though truthfully this came from her own experiences more than a personal dislike of the girls; a Lauren-Laura duo had once tormented her. Secondly, well… in truth, you see, she had no real reason. But Emmett never needed a reason to like his friends, so she never needed a reason to dislike them, and he was not exactly the favorite of her friends. Sibling rivalry, eh, reader?

But now Larissa sounds like a cruel person. She will be, one day, in Emmett's eyes, but for now they are truly best friends, playing computer and video games as the deadliest duo there ever was. She'd cared deeply for her little brother during the ten years of their existence together.

When their father arrived home (earlier than Justine—not something that normally happened), there was rejoicing on Emmett's part and a smile from Larissa. The relationships between parent and child here can be summed up easily: Larissa was her father's face and mother's mind, and Emmett his mother's face and father's mind. But that is little but a summary, and a summary usually leaves out several important details. The boldness of Emmett was his mother's, the reclusiveness of Larissa her father's. In truth, I suppose, there is no accurate way to describe who came from where.

Larissa was never daddy's little girl, Emmett never a mama's boy. Larissa would connect and bond primarily with her mother, Emmett with his father. Oh, the heartache that comes of it.

.(:x:).

Emmett's favorite teacher had always been Mr. Lowry, a kind gentleman who taught English as well as foreign language classes. Emmett did not have a particular knack for the English language; he did not see himself as being particularly strong or gifted in any area, and he was content with being average all around. Nonetheless, this man was one Emmett would think of fondly twenty years later, when everything else about Celadon City was a blur of the painful and otherwise unpleasant.

Sitting in class that day, Emmett meditated on the journal question. _Do you have any intention of ever going on a pokèmon journey? Why or why not? Why do you think the fervor for this occupation has died over the past decade? This _will_ become a creative writing assignment next week. _The topic undoubtedly stemmed from the anticipation surrounding the ten or so children that would leave at the end of the next week on excursions of their own.

Emmett had always gotten the impression that someone left where they lived because they were not content with their lives and the people in it. It didn't much matter to him what they left to do, but if you are truly happy, why abandon it? He jotted this down and then gazed out the window, preparing to daydream for the next few minutes.

He had never had the desire to train pokèmon; something seemed wrong about it. He had taken the classes and such (it was required, something he had always found very strange). Yet, Emmett supposed this lack of desire to leave meant that he was pleased with life, love, and why as it pertained to him.

It was last period, Friday.

What a way to condemn yourself for the weekend, to go home that Saturday to no one, to not go home again for a long time. What blatant foreshadowing.


	3. III: Preemption

**Prologue.**

**III. Preemption**

Insomnia is not something to be taken lightly. Emmett was meditating on this and how he would give anything to fall asleep when he heard a loud noise, akin to a door slamming shut.

The mind of a child works in strange ways, ways usually only understood by people as they live with children. A teen cannot quite comprehend the babblings of a toddler, nor a twentysomething the wavering moods of a teen. Emmett's mind registered some things I cannot quite explain the origin of, but they occurred to him nonetheless. What was the cause of this noise? Why, aliens of course.

Emmett sat up in bed. Or ghosts, back to take revenge on his family for building their house on a sacred burial ground. It could have been, he reasoned, a robber. But the latter was not nearly as intimidating nor exciting. After all, it made more sense to be afraid something you cannot understand or fight as opposed to a mortal being that could be overcome by something as simple as a baseball bat.

Footsteps echoed from the small house's lower level. Emmett slid out of bed and located a small, souvenir hockey stick that he kept hanging on the wall. The realization that there might actually be someone unwelcome in his house was infinitely more terrifying than his mind had fabricated it to be.

He stood in the corner of his room for several minutes, hoping that another family member would rise and inspect the sleeping house for him, but twelve-fifty-three turned to one-seventeen, and still no noise came from the hallway outside his room. In a rush of admirable naivety, Emmett began to creep out of his room and down the stairs, in that silent and innocent way that only young children can; the ability to defy logic seems to be lost as reality sets into a maturing mind.

Emmett reached the end of the stairwell and pressed his back against the wall. A wave of comfort washed over him as he heard his mother's voice from the kitchen.

"…just go… talk to him, okay?" Justine sighed a brief, squeaking, painful sigh. It was one of the sighs of parenthood that any mother would recognize from another as a sign of dealing with a child. But Emmett did not know this. Images of murderers and thieves crept back into his head as he heard his mother talking to someone he could not see.

"…everything'll be okay, I promise…" Emmett's heart rate slowed again. He told himself he was too old for this kind of stress.

Now, footsteps came toward the stairwell. In his young way, Emmett raced like a fox up the stairs and threw himself into his bed, hockey stick and all. When he saw his mother step into his room, he shut his eyes. Ah, another art of the child: pretending to be asleep.

Contrary to his earlier desires, Emmett did not want to fall back into unconsciousness. However, Justine sat at her son's bedside (for whatever reason, she felt it necessary at that moment), and Emmett was overcome by the stillness, the darkness, and the silence.

.:i:.

Twenty-four hours later, it was the sound of doors and feet that roused Emmett from his sleep once more.

He pulled the covers over his head, begging the good Lord to let him fall back to sleep. But the good Lord had more important plans, and none of them involved Emmett regaining the slumber that had been taken so rudely from him.

The covers were thrown off his face, and he stared at the ceiling, aggravated. He lay there like this for several minutes, forgetting about the strange noise that had disturbed him. Instead, he sang to himself quietly, a horse whisper, trying to lull himself back into unawareness.

_I'm tired and I want to go to bed…_

The song had many memories attached to it, including one very interesting firework escapade during the summer prior to the occurrences now being described. Emmett could clearly hear his mother, aunt, and uncle singing the song in faulty harmony at his cousin's house on Christmas. He could see the jerky motions of the family pet—a bitter old pidgey—as even it sang, unable to resist the happiness in the room. Holidays were always a time of family and fun.

…_I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went right to my head…_

Emmett recalled the events of the previous day. It had been a nice day. Much to Justine's dismay, her son had begun to ask for permission to go unsupervised into the nearby town with his friends. This particular day, Emmett had gone with a group of boys—Ian included—to play stickball on their school's playground and into the town itself to have lunch.

…a_nd where ever I may roam…_

More noise from downstairs. He could hear, now—he had always been able to hear well, though he would admit his eyesight was sub-par—he could hear his mother's voice as she addressed his sister, with a reserved harshness.

He squeezed the pillow over his head and gave the bed a kick. He wanted to go back to bed. He knew now that it was nothing more than a petty argument between mother and daughter, and that he did not care much about. He did, however, have some concern about not being able to get back to sleep for the next few hours. As any insomniac knows, waking up at night might just mean being up for the day.

…o_n land, or sea, or foam…_

He made his way across the hall, into the bathroom. A change of scenery always did his senses good when he found himself struggling to sleep, and it always would. He continued to play the tune in his head, praying that some form of tiredness would come over him. Maybe he could just drop dead there, in the sink. He mentally urged his mother and sister to shut up and go to bed themselves.

…y_ou can always hear me singin' this song…_

Crossing back into his room, he heard the front door click shut. It was not a slam, but a normal, everyday, act of the closing off of the entrance to their house. It was followed several minutes later by another click.

This was strange.

Emmett rushed downstairs. He inspected every room in the house, even though he was fairly sure it was empty after he saw no one in the front hall. Lastly he checked his parent's room, hoping to find his father there avoiding the whole mess. The climb up the stairs was slow and tedious, even though he felt he was running his fastest (which, incidentally, was not all too fast). His father was nowhere to be found.

The door clicked a third time, but now it was Emmett, in his pajamas, running through their front yard, trying to figure out which direction everyone had headed in.

_…show me the way to go home…_

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his sister in the backyard. He raced toward her, angry at himself for not having confronted his mother the night before; he accused himself of everything he could think of, until he tripped over a root concealed by a patch of weeds. He hit the ground hard, and lay there for several seconds, trying to collect himself.

_…go home._

.:ii:.

Laryssa knew already. Yet, she was still shaken by the scene. She wondered, feared for the future of everything and everyone.

That was the state Emmett found her in, out in the woods. He had no desire to let her know that he had followed them, so when she came into view he crept away to the side in his quiet way. He came upon the scene from a different angle.

His parents stood there in an embrace that seemed mutually reluctant. He could clearly see his father's face, staring into a nonexistent abyss, the expression a strange medley of relief and fear. Justine's face was buried in his shoulder, the young woman's countenance hidden from public view.

And suddenly, a wave of feelings overcame Emmett. At first he couldn't understand what they were—some, he didn't even recognize as feelings—but, as he listened to his parent's words, the oddities of his life piled up. Things he had blown off as quirky became evidence against the solemn face, and Emmett could only think about what an idiot he was. Time slowed (as it does in my recounting the scene, which seems to only be able to convey itself properly in slow motion and in the most indirect of ways possible).

Emmett ran. He wasn't sure where he was headed, but he hoped it was toward his bed. Leaves and twigs breaking and rustling were a symphony underneath his feet, the playful naïveté of children gone from his muscles. He wanted to run, needed to. Quietness was a ridiculous thing to worry about.

But, as he tripped over the same root, he realized he had nowhere to go. There was no place wanted to go.

_Do you have any intention of ever going on a pokèmon journey?_

He needed to run.

_Why or why not?_

He needed to.

…_the ten or so children that would leave at the end of the next week…_

So, dear reader, he did. But no matter where he ran in life, however far away, the question that had chased him through the woods that night would always find him.

_Then… what am I?_


	4. The future is an opaque mirror

**Celadon City**

**1.1**

_The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face. _

-Jim Bishop

-----

This is a story about life. Your middle-school teacher might call it _coming-of-age_. Take it for what it is, expect ups and downs, and pray for a happy ending… even when no one else feels like it can come.

.:i:.

Emmett opened the door to his house. It smelled the same. This had been a big concern of his: that the entire fabric of his household would have changed, thus affecting the odor.

He stepped in and methodically threw his things down on the loveseat by the door. The pickles were still in the door of the fridge; the couch still had that stain from the time Larissa had left a kiwi on it overnight. No time had passed.

Emmett would always look back on those three years as truly insignificant in his life. It was if the time had been sucked into a chasm—he left, he came back and things continued from where they had left off. It was a difficult sensation to explain, having his normal life just pick up again after all that time. Yet, he never gave it much thought, and neither shall we.

Life didn't bother to nag at him until Larissa arrived home later that afternoon. She wasn't surprised to see him—he had called ahead and told her that he was coming home—but the little brother in him was crushed that she didn't actually make a big deal about his return.

He had been in the house for only a few hours before realizing that he had nothing to do, and he decided to roam around the town for a while. It was the Friday before eighth grade would start for his school, and the place was sure to be buzzing with people he knew.

The first familiar faces Emmett saw were not of his school friends or their parents, but of two young cashiers at a popular surf shop near his house. There were not too many surf shops in the heart of Celadon City, logically enough, and this boded well for their business. The little store had been there as long as Emmett could remember, and he couldn't help feeling unimaginable relief when he saw not only that the store was still there, but that the young girl—the owner's daughter—and the boy that had been working there since Emmett was nine still waited on customers.

He knew the girl's name was Lauren, but he did not know the boy's name and neither of them knew his. The gossip around his grade had always been that the two were madly in love with each other (at least as much as two tweens can be in love, which probably amounts to no more than a childish crush). More often than not the talk of the girls' lunch table was not about each other, but about these mysterious mini-celebrities.

Time passed and, somehow, Emmett ended up at his grandfather's workplace. This was quite a feat you see, as Mossdeep City was a relatively long journey from Celadon. The overnight boat trip eventually put him on the doorstep of the Mossdeep Labs Biological Division at around eight o'clock the next morning. By the time he was able to sit down in his grandfather's office, gazing through the large Plexiglas window that overlooked the rest of the lab, it had been nearly twenty-four hours and was late afternoon.

"Finally home, are we?" The question was quiet and without emotion, as Dr. Christopher Solvati shuffled through papers on his desk, looking for some thing or another. After either locating it or giving up, he looked up at his grandson and posed the question with more passion, "Decided to come home, eh kid?"

Emmett felt he should say yes, wanted to say no, and said neither.

He had always admired his grandfather; ever since he was younger; talking to him was a kind of therapy. He had decided on the boat that he wanted to go in and, as discreetly as possible, bid his grandfather for sagely advice. On the doorstep, he resolved he wanted to go in, mope, and see what came of it. In truth, you see, he had no idea what he wanted, for what he truly wanted he could not have.

"Give me a word, Em! Can't help you if you don't say anything," Chris said rather happily. The pleasant tone and casualness in his voice irked Emmett. He had known already; of course he had. It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

A word was what he wanted, then. "Disturbed." The word had come out sounding more monotone than Emmett had meant it—it was supposed to have a sarcastic edge in it somewhere and, frankly, it did not.

Chris gave a thoughtful grunt. "I can't really blame you for that one. Continue, if you'd like."

"I don't _know_." The sarcasm had made its way through in that one. Chris sighed and leaned back in his chair, which responded by swiveling a bit and making a distasteful squeaking noise. Chris laughed. So did Emmett, forgetting that he didn't want to seem happy in any way, shape, or form. "So, did Gram know?" The question sounded almost lighthearted. Emmett was unendingly confused by his sudden inability to control the tone of his voice.

"Yes she did," came the answer. Silence followed, creating awkwardness as it always did when it entered on cue.

"So is that a lie too, or what?" There was the missing tone. The words were bitter and sharp, just as they were when they had first made their way through Emmett's mind.

Chris sighed. It was a pitiful sigh that Emmett resented. "Em, no one _lied_ to you—"

"That's complete and total crap and you know it." Emmett hadn't meant for that to come out harsh, but he had wanted it to. He took a deep breath, wishing he wanted to apologize. The room echoed noiselessness in response, silence again an actor with perfect timing. "Confused," Emmett finally, quietly squeaked. Confusion was a small, squeaky feeling: that one had come out properly.

"Then let me help you." There was desperation in Chris' voice as he leaned over the desk, his crossed arms supporting his weight, his weight crackling and crunching the disheveled mass of papers.

Emmett nodded. If nothing else, he was fully aware of the fact that he needed help. This was an interesting shift of mindset, since he was rather sure that several seconds before he had been adamant on asking for nothing, and before that had a desire for advice.

"So tell me, then." The tone was quiet, reserved. Emmett felt that, even he if he wanted to change his pitch, it wouldn't come out any other way. Considering his luck with voice control this far, this was probably was not much of a stretch. "What," he allowed the words '_the God-damned hell_' to stay in his head, "Am I?"

"What, you couldn't figure that out on your journey? That's what you went to do, right? Solve all your problems?" Emmett could not find words for his surprise. He felt the insult well up in his eyes as he stared in disbelief at the thing that had come out of his grandfather's mouth. The Silence must have been astounded by the biting comment as well, because the lack of sound that ensued was not awkward.

Emmett recoiled deep into his chair, and retreated himself into the mind he had been busy hating not long ago. He tried to stop himself from crying, and fought the urge to run out of the room that was the final place he wanted to locate any kind of consolation.

Chris closed his eyes and felt a twitch in his stomach. He sighed. "Em, I'm so sorry. Listen, kid…"

Emmett came out of his retreat. The grandparent he idolized had returned. He was thoroughly convinced that this was the only person who could give him comfort and he decided right then and there to cling onto that for dear life.

There was more silence, but it was untimely and, in being so, rather welcome. Chris gave Emmett time to collect himself while he wondered how he had let something like that come out of his mouth. Finally, Emmett released his breath loudly, gave a nod, and decided to restart the conversation. "What's up?" His voice had quivered slightly, but otherwise the sound was as intended: friendly.

"Not too much, Em." Chris paused to look, interested in something, at the screen of his computer. "Interesting word, isn't it?"

"No. It's ugly; I hate it. It's hard, and weird. It doesn't even have, like, normal letters in it. And it already has a meaning. I don't want to be, like, assigned to a word that already exists for something else. That's stupid," Emmett replied, suddenly having regained control of his voice. The tone was casual, thoughtful, agitated, and as intended: like a child confiding in someone he trusts.

"That doesn't mean it's not interesting. Think of words like _tape_. Do you know how many meanings it has? But when you ask for a tape for your VCR, I don't give you Scotch tape. And not too many people know the real, biological definition anyway. Even if they had an idea, it and your definition are similar enough." Chris paused. "_Hybrid_. No, I don't think it's ugly. Maybe a little hard, but sculptures and hard and they're not ugly, now are they? What word would you rather have?"

"A real one." It didn't take Emmett long to realize just how juvenile that particular answer was.

"Last I checked it was," Chris replied softly, his attention having shifted back to the computer and the mess covering his workplace. The discussion was over; they had hit a wall. Uneventfully, Emmett said goodbye to his grandfather, and began dreading his arrival home. There was so much and the future to worry about.

.:ii:.

It is in Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ that Feste the Fool addresses Olivia with a speech about the doubt in words. They are finicky, he claims, and any fool—or any Fool-- could easily manipulate them to mean what they do not, and to not mean what they do. Chris Solvati believed in this, and had mastered it. Only his family believed what he said was what he meant, and only Emmett believed he had nothing to hide. Only, Emmett believed because saw no other choice.


	5. The remedy is the experience

**Celadon City**

**1.2**

_The remedy is the experience, which is a dangerous liaison._

--Jason Mraz, 'The Remedy (I Won't Worry)'

---

Emmett pressed his back against the picket fence of Hoenn's Route 121. The rock in his hand was light and flat—a good skipping stone. He would have put it his pocket and brought it to the beach for that purpose had he not thought that locating another rock in the grassy area would be too much work. He could hear the pelipper swooping casually over the area behind him, occasionally making unintentional contact with the ground. Emmett was not exactly sure what the creature was doing, but he had finally found one and wasn't about to let his questioning distract him from it; he had no intention of giving it opportunity to get away.

He watched the bird's movements through the slits in the fence. The lumbering creature hit the ground once more, and landed to preen. Emmett waited a second, and then threw the rock.

He missed.

Emmett gave the ground an exasperated look before beginning to crawl around in search of another stone.

In short, he eventually found one, after much blood (annoying little zigzagoon), sweat (Lilycove was always warm), and tears (the awful little creature had bit him quite hard). He thought it might be a good idea to find more than one rock, but he opted to instead have faith in his throwing skills.

This rock hit, much to Emmett's delight. He mentally congratulated himself, taking his attention away from the pokèmon. He soon discovered that this was a terrible mistake, seeing as it was not much later that the pelican responded by slamming hard into the boy, sending him rolling several feet.

Emmett rolled onto his back and took a deep breath. The first hit had not been nearly as gruesome as he was expecting it to be, and there was no blood so he christened himself perfectly fine. He sat up to survey his surroundings. Emmett managed to catch sight of the pelipper before it decided its next move, but he froze. It was about then that it dawned on him that he had no idea how to retaliate, and the unconscious half of mind had not kicked in and told him what to do as he had expected it to.

A shot of water exploded in his face, and he fell backwards. He lay on his back for several seconds, staring at the sky as if it would give him all of the answers. Or it could just suck him up right then and there, seeing as if he ceased existing, so would his problems. Yes, that second one sounded quite appealing.

The pelipper swooped down for another assault and Emmett braced himself, covering his head with his arms.

If you don't much mind, we will now backtrack a bit. And if you do mind, well, that is quite unfortunate.

After what was in Emmett's opinion a rather unfruitful conversation with his grandfather, he made it his business to unearth Mishu and Hank.

They were twins, the former named after his grandmother's recently deceased canine and the latter after his grandfather's only childhood pet. They were the obligatory genetic experiments floating around the place, or at least that was how Larissa had explained it to Emmett. In truth, Larissa did not know how they had gotten there. They had been around long before her and anything she said to her little brother about them was speculation. They scared her, the strange little creatures. She didn't much care for all of this talk about 'regular,' 'lesser,' and 'greater' pokèmon, nor did she wish to become involved in Emmett's strange infatuation with her grandfather's job. She preferred her grandma and the business aspect of the place, anyway.

Emmett found Mishu where he always seemed to be, hovering around the heads of the lab's employees. The expression that came over his face when he saw Emmett was in fact that of elation, though it was not something immediately apparent to someone who had not spent many hours trying to figure out how to equate this creature's expressions to those of a human being. Emmett was, in fact, one with a lot of time on his hands. This, coupled with the fact that he had better things to do than his homework, provided for very clear communication between boy and pokèmon.

It was Mishu who, being raised with humans and speaking their language quite clearly, had come up with the idea of Emmett trying to figure out how to handle however much of him was whatever kind of pokèmon.

Returning to our present time, Emmett stumbled into his grandparents' house. He ran shakily up to the guest room that had come to be his own over the years, and stared himself in the mirror.

As soon as he moved his hand from his face, blood ran onto the vanity. He pounded his fist on the now permanently stained wood, agitated. In an act of instant karma, a small porcelain Cheshire Cat figuring dropped from the top of the vanity's mirror onto the floor and shattered. Emmett would have screamed in exasperation did he not fear that it would worsen the condition of his nose. He loved that little trinket and had it since he was young.

Emmett did not know what to do with his injury. He did know that he was either supposed to squeeze his nose to stop it from bleeding, or put his head between his knees. He also had heard that one of them made the bleeding worse, but could not remember which one it was.

He put his head back and squeezed his nose with one hand, while with the other he groped the vanity for a tissue box that had been directly in front of him not three seconds earlier. He located it and tried to clean both himself and the wood up with the flimsy tissues. It probably does not come as a surprise to say that this endeavor failed miserably.

Larissa chose this moment to walk into the room.

Emmett turned around and gave a surprisingly enthusiastic fake smile, "What brings you here?"

"Everyone is looking for you, Em. I told mom you were coming home, and you freaking disappear again! Figures you'd be here." Larissa paraphrased the words her mother had said earlier absentmindedly as she toyed with a flower hanging on the wall in the room. It was a few moments later that she actually looked at her little brother. She knew she was supposed to be the smart, calm, reliable one, but he was just insane sometimes. "What the hell did you do?"

His head still back, Emmett hobbled across the room and kicked the door shut. He proceeded to make a show of sitting himself down in front while his head was craned in that odd position and his hand seemingly adhered to his nose. "I did it," he said hoarsely, tired.

"You hit yourself in the nose?" Larissa took her phone out of her pocket. There was blood still running freely down Emmett's face, and if it didn't stop soon she intended to call some kind of medical authority. She had seen a boy nearly die from blood loss on her school playground, and she had no intention of repeating the incident with her brother.

"No," Emmett said, rolling his eyes, "the pelican-ipper thing did that." He took a deep breath. "The pelipper."

"You got attacked by a pelipper?" She lowered the phone, curious and more than mildly amused. He was notoriously spontaneous, her brother, and this was absolutely going to be a story worthy of recounting to her friends at the lunch table.

"Well, yeah. But, no, see…" he paused and lowered his voice in the most dramatic fashion he could, "I attacked the pelipper." He waited for her response, eyes wide with some strange kind of awe.

Larissa knew what he meant by this as soon as the words left his mouth, but she refused to admit it to herself. She swallowed hard and attempted a ridiculing smile, "What are you talking about?" The sentence came out monotone and without meaning. It figured that Emmett would bring the extra baggage home with him. The whole issue had almost left when he did, and she was looking forward to escaping it entirely when she went away to college.

He took a few deep breaths, excited, exhausted, and in considerable pain that was only worsening as he absentmindedly squeezed his nose tighter and tighter. Every time he felt blood roll down his hand, he tightened his grip and commanded the flow to stop. "Rissa, I did it. I was moping at Mishu--"

"Mishu told you to attack a pelipper? Why didn't you attack, like, a rattata or something?" She sat down next to him, her curiosity steadily overcoming her fears, something curiosity tends to enjoy doing.

"They don't have rattata here. I did get bit by a zigzagoon, though." He paused again. The pain was working its way up into his head, becoming steadily more noticeable. It throbbed as he thought, stunting the mechanisms inside his brain. "He basically told me that we're stuck with this and we should figure it out. Riss, I didn't expect it to _work_. God, it was so weird." He shook his head and shivered. Larissa wasn't sure if the movement was because the attack had been horrific to execute or if the pain from his nose was horrific to put up with.

"What was it?" Her voice was lowering now, too, as she became immersed in the moment.

Emmett smiled. "Hah. I don't even know! It was the weirdest thing I've ever felt. It didn't hurt, but it almost felt like it should have. I didn't even think about it. I mean, I did, I was sort of aggravated that I couldn't figure it out because Mishu made it pretty clear that I should be able to do something. Which is weird, by the way, that he'd know, but anyway, it just happened, I…" He let his sentence trail off as a sneeze began to sneak up his nose. He tried to stop it.

He couldn't.

Blood flew everywhere, and began once more to flow down his face. He shuddered and then whimpered. Larissa jumped up to get the tissues box, throwing it casually in her brother's direction as she tried to remember where she had put the phone. The box hit Emmett in the side of the head.

"Rissa!" he groaned, trying not to laugh. There was comedy in the situation somewhere, and, evidently, some conscious part of his mind had found it. He was too exhausted to effectively fight it, and who would deny joy when they are in pain?

The small phone had conveniently made its way underneath the bed that sat in the center of the room. How it got there Larissa did not know, but she had found in her lifetime that all telephones had minds of their own and refused to stay where they were last put down. The gadget was eventually located, and medical assistance promptly called upon.

It was, if nothing else, an eventful first weekend back home for Emmett Solvati, complete with broken nose and several stitches. Emmett would always find it an enjoyable story to tell despite the injury, as I assure you, have I.


End file.
